Shelter
by Lindira
Summary: Dorian, Aeric, and an old car at the start of winter. (Fallout AU, Dorian/M!Lavellan. Part of the "Never Changes" series.)


A/N: Fallout AU, part of the "Never Changes" series. From an ask on Tumblr: "Aeric and Dorian in the Fallout AU cuddled together in the shell of an old car cuddling to keep warm during the night."

* * *

"Shelter"

ooo

Creators, it was cold. When the snow started, Aeric half-expected it to burn like acid when it touched his skin. Instead, it was just bitterly cold, and that was bad enough. The softly falling flakes might have been pretty, had it not been for the fact that the temperature had been plummeting steadily for the last week, making his hands sting and his face stiff.

Dorian had stopped complaining a day ago. Aeric took it as a bad sign.

It was not quite evening yet, but Aeric was already exhausted. By the way Dorian was walking, Aeric could tell he felt the same way. They needed something enclosed, something that would not only cover their heads but keep out the wind as well. Even the gentle breeze that swept flurries around them made the air feel colder. It would be worse at night. Dorian's Pip-Boy predicted a terrible windchill for the evening.

Aeric waited a moment for Dorian, who was lagging behind. As the other man drew near, Aeric pulled him close with an arm around his shoulders. Their ragged clothes, even layered as they were, weren't meant for weather like this. The frigid air flitted in beneath the hems of their shirts and pants, biting their skin and seeping into their bones.

Aeric's ears hurt from the cold, even under his bandana. Even still, he resisted the urge to cover them, to protect them from the wind. He hated touching his ears.

"We should stop for the night soon," he said, rubbing Dorian's arm in hopes of adding some warmth.

"Yes, but where?" Dorian said, teeth chattering. "There's nothing for miles. I doubt there are even any caves in these blasted hills."

Aeric scanned the area, squinting through the light snow. There had to be some shelter. Their makeshift tent would never keep them warm enough, and they would collapse from exhaustion if they didn't stop soon.

"Up there on that bridge," Dorian said, pointing. "There's one of those metal carriages. Would that work?"

Aeric hugged him closer. "Better than nothing. Come on."

They trudged up the slope toward the overpass, snowflakes dancing around their feet as they walked. The snow would not coat the ground, Aeric knew - the flakes were too few, the ground not frozen yet - but it made their boots slip with every step in the dying grass. In their travels over the past few months, they had seen several of these vehicles. "Cars", Aeric knew they were called, though he couldn't remember how he knew it. Vocabulary from this world cropped up in his mind every now and then, remnants of the man he used to be before the simulation. He knew cars by sight, just as he had known what was a gun, a computer, or a grenade just by looking at them.

The sedan at the top of the bridge was wide, large enough to hold both of them with relative comfort in the back seat. Dorian tried the doors. Locked. "Who abandons a vehicle like this and bothers to lock it?" Dorian muttered, hugging himself and bouncing on his feet in a vain attempt at warmth.

"Hang on," Aeric said. He circled the car and found the antenna. After blowing into his hands for a moment to warm them, he took hold of the antenna and twisted it. With so much rust, Aeric thought he might have to break the damn thing off, but it finally came loose and screwed off. He went to one of the doors and, with the flat of his knife, wedged the door open just a crack. Sliding the antenna into the car, he searched around until he felt a button beneath it and pressed. The door made a sound, and Aeric smiled. He opened the door, the antenna clattering to the ground.

" _Fasta vass_ ," Dorian said with genuine amazement in his voice. "Where did you learn a thing like that?"

"Not sure," Aeric replied. "Handy trick, though." It was strange the things he knew how to do. Skills and new words came almost effortlessly to both of them. They usually knew what to call things, how to do things. Yet even if they knew a thing's name, they rarely knew what it did. He knew an antenna was called such, but not what it was for. Other than unlocking car doors, though he didn't think that was its true purpose. Aeric unlocked the rest of the doors. "Go on in," he said.

Dorian slipped off his knapsack and climbed into the car, and Aeric did the same a moment later. With the door closed and the wind blocked out, it was already a little better, but they still shivered violently. They each took out their blankets from their knapsacks. Aeric also unrolled the thin tarp they used as a tent and began tethering it to the walls of the car, hooking the ends to the plastic hooks and handles above the doors. With the tarp, he blocked off the windows and the front of the cabin, casting them in relative darkness.

"You certainly seem to know what you're doing," Dorian said as he wrapped the blanket around himself. He had been watching Aeric with interest. "I wonder if this is something you did often, in your old life."

Aeric shook his head. "This part, I learned from my parents," he said softly. "My fake ones, I guess. I remember doing this in the _aravel_ , when snowstorms came. Cover the windows, make a small space, keep the heat in."

"I see." Dorian was silent for a while, thoughtful and sad. "I wonder why Solas created a memory like that for you. It's useful now, but seems rather frivolous, adding such little details to your fabricated backstory."

"Maybe he was bored," Aeric offered with a shrug.

Dorian watched Aeric for a few moments then started fiddling with an item hanging from the side of his knapsack. It was a lantern, one that Dorian had cobbled together some time ago from broken energy weapons. "I think I can feel my fingers again," he said, reaching for a fuel cell. "I'll try to get this bloody thing working. With any luck, it might actually give off some heat as well." He lifted a corner of the tarp to work in the waning sunlight.

With the tarp hanging around them, the car was feeling a fair bit warmer. Aeric gathered his own blanket around himself, his shivers calming to occasional shudders. "It seems winter's here," he said. "Perhaps we should move someplace warmer. North, is it?"

"No, south, I believe," Dorian replied with a shake of his head. "My Pip-Boy says we're on the northern hemisphere, so south would be warmer." He gave a derisive grunt. "Maker accursed world. Everything's backwards." After adjusting some dials, Dorian slipped the fuel cell into the lantern and flipped a switch. A grin bloomed on his face when the lantern flickered and came alight with a white glow. "Aha! I know what I'm doing after all!"

"Doubt, from you?" Aeric teased, offering him a piece of dried meat he had retrieved from his knapsack.

"As I said, everything's backwards!" Dorian exclaimed, chuckling. He took the meat from Aeric and slid closer. "Without my magic, I feel so useless. Thank goodness I evidently know how to manipulate these damned contraptions."

The light from the little lantern radiated a faint heat that did little to drive away the cold. Aeric shuddered as he chewed on his own bit of food, placing his hands close to the lantern to make his hands stop stinging.

"Here, _amatus_ ," Dorian said, drawing even nearer. He adjusted the blankets so that both he and Aeric were cocooned inside, covering their heads like a large hood. Dorian then balanced the lantern carefully on his lap before wrapping his arms around Aeric beneath the blankets. "Better?"

Aeric nodded, the shudders already subsiding beneath Dorian's strong arms. "Much."

Dorian rubbed Aeric's hands in his. "Maker, your hands are like ice! You never used to get this cold at Skyhold."

"My body wasn't real in Skyhold," Aeric pointed out.

"True," Dorian replied with a light chuckle. "But you'd think the simulation would have been somewhat based in reality."

Aeric snorted. Very little about his body was the same. Once again, he had to resist the urge to touch his ears, hidden beneath the bandana he almost always wore so he didn't have to see them.

As if reading his thoughts, Dorian pressed a soft kiss into Aeric's hair. "It's all right. You're fine as you are."

"I don't feel fine," Aeric grumbled. He shifted a bit, trying to find a comfortable position where he could put an arm around Dorian. Somehow, it was important to Aeric that he still be able to keep Dorian warm as well.

"I know," Dorian replied softly. His arms tightened around Aeric, and he leaned over so their heads could rest against each other. "You complain so rarely, and do so much. Sometimes I forget how hard this must be for you."

"No worse than for you."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Dorian gave a sad smile, one Aeric could feel more than see. He felt a tickle on his cheek as the curl of Dorian's lips pushed the tip of his mustache upward. "It's been a shock for us both, don't get me wrong," Dorian said. "But at least I'm the same as I was. And I didn't leave behind family." He shook his head a little. "Well, I did, but my relationship with them was… complicated."

Aeric shrugged, tucking his head so that he could rest it on Dorian's shoulder, drawing as close as he could without occupying the same space. He had tried not to think about his parents, or his clan. Or about Pai. However fabricated they were, they had been real to him. Their lessons were still valuable. As he glanced around the car, at the tarp that insulated it, he felt an aching nostalgia. Real or no, his family's lessons were keeping them warm. Keeping them alive.

"I'm sorry," Dorian murmured. "I don't mean to make you melancholy."

"I'm not," Aeric assured him. "It's just… strange. Missing things and people that aren't real."

Dorian kissed Aeric's forehead. "Perhaps it will be better when we regain more of our memories. Seems natural that we would miss the only things we can remember, after all."

"So we can miss real things instead of fake things?"

Dorian smirked. "Something like that." He shifted against the old seats, the cracked fake leather squeaking a little as he moved. "But for now, why don't you try to get some sleep? I'll keep watch."

Aeric lifted his head to glance up at Dorian. "Are you sure? It's early still. We could stay up, listen to some of that weird music on your Pip-Boy."

Dorian smiled again, and Aeric felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the blanket or the lantern, and everything to do with the love he saw reflecting back at him. "I'll tell you what," Dorian said. "I'll put on the radio, and we'll listen. And you tell me when you get tired, all right?"

With a nod, Aeric lay his head back down on Dorian's shoulder. Their small space in the car wasn't warm, perhaps, but it was at least no longer freezing. "What about you?"

"Don't worry about me. I promise to wake you in a few hours." Beneath the blanket, Dorian turned a dial on his Pip-Boy, stopping when he found the radio. Muffled music filled the car, a song full of trumpets and horns, a man's voice crooning about a blue moon. The music sounded like swinging, swaying and rhythmic. "Go on and rest, _amatus_. Let me take care of you for once."

Aeric smiled and gave Dorian a little squeeze. "Love you, _ma'nehn_."

"I know, you big oaf."

Chuckling, Aeric closed his eyes, letting the music and Dorian's warmth wash over him.

They sat without speaking for a while, just listening to the radio. "You know," Dorian murmured, "even though it's strange, this music isn't terrible. Perhaps this world isn't all bad."

Huddled against the man he loved, in the little space with the flickering lantern light, in the car on the bridge in the middle of nowhere, Aeric felt more at home than he had in a long time. "No, not all bad."


End file.
